Saturday, March 21, 2009
Never commented on Jon Stewart's supposed beat down of CNBC clown Cramer - so here's my comment: Stewart's turned into a sanctimonious twit. Used to be not a bad show, but has gone downhill since guy who started The Onion left. Still manages some sharp satirical bits, but the rampant left wing bias of it undermines the satire [which is why The Onion's political satire is much more satisfying] Stewart himself seems quite taken with his role as tone setter when it comes to political dialog and the left/right zeitgeist in general - but also quite obvious he depends on the cover of the 'comedy': it allows him to engage in simplistic partisan prattling and then fall back on the I'm just an entertainer dodge when more substance may be required, which is exactly what he did with Cramer, pillorying the hapless fool for not taking his role as I guess a business media maven seriously - it was a ludicrous point, especially coming from a guy who shamelessly used the ultimately light weight humour of his show to promote Obama. Any reasonably intelligent person with a team of writers and some knack for performing on camera can manage to sound almost well informed and thought out in the scatter shot world of entertainment news - and that's exactly what Stewart does. But the earnest way he approaches 'serious' issues like in the Cramer interview belies the fact that he now sees himself, or more accurately has accepted the mantle of being a leading voice when it comes to the opinions and attitudes of the youthful demographic - in short, success has gone to his head, the role he imagines for himself is not at all in keeping with his limited attributes [although admittedly entirely in keeping with his media profile - but I see that as a negative], the worst excesses of sanctimonious left wing buffoonery are starting to crowd out the meager charms of his comic persona and if he had any real gift for satire he himself would show up as an object of ridicule on his own show - but of course he'd have to be a conservative for that to ever happen.
